Rising prices and inflation characterized most of 2022. Transportation, goods, and services have been becoming more expensive for the average person. It seems normal and even encouraged to look for other sources of income outside of your main job.
Aside from my job as a librarian in a university, my other source of income is from blogging and creating content with my websites and social media pages. It is not life changing money (I am still dreaming of that), but it does help add some extra income.
I have been blogging about libraries, librarians, and librarianship in the Philippines in Malditang Librarian since 2016. I recently started this blog, Real Iloilo for content related to the city I live in.
People online seem to think that being an influencer or earning through blogging is easy money. It took me seven years of working on my blog as a hobby before I started earning from it. I am still learning on how to improve this as an income stream and how to earn more.
Here are five ways I earn extra income with being a content creator.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is promoting products and services for others to buy, and you earn a small commission for each successful purchase. In my case, I sometimes share products for librarians and books. I am a Shopee Affiliate and I am also a member of Involve Asia (sign up here).
Website and video ads
If you love writing, why not start a blog or website and share your interests? If you like creating videos, then Youtube or Tiktok might be in your lane. My main blog is Malditang Librarian, which is about librarianship and news. I have been writing and blogging for around seven years now, and I only started earning this year with the ads I put in my website with Google Adsense.
The earnings from ads still depend on the page views, but one way to increase ad revenue is to continue writing and creating original content for a specific audience. I am also working on getting my Youtube channel monetized.
Sponsored posts
I am a member of a local bloggers group, Iloilo Bloggers Society. Being part of this group has helped my blogging journey and I've learned a lot from other content creators. This year, many businesses both national and local have partnered with our group to create content for their brands. We create social media posts, blog posts, videos, reels, and content required by the brand. We earn from these brand deals.
Paid articles and paid posts
As I love writing, I also look for opportunities where I can write for payment. I write Iloilo-related articles for this blog and IBS Digital Network. I join blogging networks like Intellifluence or Partipost, where content creators can choose from a variety of opportunities to create content for different brands for payment.
Digital banks
This is not really an active source of income, but most of the money I earn with my online gigs are saved in digital banks, which usually have higher interest rates for savings than traditional banks. I personally use Seabank. I do plan to invest this money to other endeavors in the future, but I feel like its better to save it in a high-interest account while I'm not using it.
No matter how much we earn, it's good to track our earnings, budget, expenses, and savings regularly. Savingscalculator.org is a good tool to track savings and project its value in the future. You can also track the value while considering other factors such as withdrawals, deposits, inflation rate, and taxes. There are also useful calculators for those who are saving for education or retirement, or if you simply have a specific savings goal.
With the rising costs of living, we should educate ourselves on finance and be more savvy when it comes to money and saving. I am constantly learning and looking for opportunities to earn. If I am earning even just a little bit with something I enjoy doing, I feel like its already an accomplishment!
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